Many exchanges throughout the world now support electronic trading. Electronic trading has made it possible for an increasing number of people to actively participate in a market at any given time. The increase in the number of potential market participants has advantageously led to, among other things, a more competitive market and greater liquidity.
A trader can connect to an exchange, for example, using a client device, and the exchange can serve as a host. Once connected, software running on the client allows the trader to log onto one or more exchanges and participate in one or more markets. Some clients run software that creates specialized interactive trading screens. In general, the trading screens enable traders to enter orders into the market, obtain market quotes, and monitor positions. The range and quality of features available varies according to the specific trading software.
One such feature often displayed to traders is the current market depth. The current market depth represents the quantity of the tradeable object bids or asks currently outstanding at a particular price level. For example, a price level may have offers to buy particular quantities at that price level, or it may have offers to sell particular quantities at that price level. At any given time, a market typically includes offers to buy particular quantities at multiple price levels and offers to sell at particular quantities at multiple price levels. Among the outstanding offers to buy and sell, the inside market generally refers to the highest current bid price and lowest current ask price.
During trading, a trader may notice that the inside market seems to remain at a particular price level. This may occur when the price level has a large volume of available quantity. As orders fill at the price level, they may be subsequently replaced by new orders. Thus, small orders may not match enough volume to trade through this price level, thereby creating a feeling of resistance to moving away from that price level. While the trader may seemingly notice this resistance, known trading displays only provide the trader with views of the current market information. The trader cannot view the historical market activity at that, or other, price levels.
In the following detailed description, a trading application and trading interface for displaying historical market information are described. These tools provide advantages, as described below, to a trader in an electronic trading environment.